34 THE ARCHITECTURE OF BIRDS. 
and care being taken to feed them as well as to give 
them no molestation, they succeeded in rearing a 
brood of young, to the wonder of all who witnessed 
the circumstance. 
A singularly fanciful account of the redbreast’s 
nest is given by Turner, an English naturalist, who 
wrote so long ago as the sixteenth century. ‘“ The 
robinet,”* says he, “which hath a red breast both 
in summer and in winter, nestleth as far as possible 
from towns and cities, in the thickest copses and 
orchards, after this manner: when she hath found 
many oak leaves, she constructeth a nest, and when 
buili, covereth it with arch work, leaving only one 
way for entrance, for which purpose she builds with 
leaves a long porch before the doorway, the which 
when going out to feed, she covereth up with leaves.” 
But as if somewhat skeptical himself respecting his 
own description, he subjoins, “ these things which I 
now write I observed when a boy, though I do not 
deny that she may nidificate otherwise; and if any 
one curious in such matters hath observed her build 
differently, it will be a gratification to me to learn 
the same: I have related candidly that whichI have 
seen.” 
There can be scarcely a doubt, we think, that Tur- 
ner in this instance was deceived by some dreaming 
fancy; yet is it afterward copied by almost every 
ornithologist, from Aldrovand and Willoughby down 
to Buffon and Bewick. After the nest is built, Wil- 
loughby tells us, the bird often strews it with leaves, 
preserving only a narrow winding entrance under 
the heap, and even shuts the mouth of it with a leaf 
when she goes abroad. The only circumstance 
which could have led to such a mistake is, that as 
the redbreast makes its nest at the root of a tree, a 
few leaves might have been accidentally drifted over 
the entrance by the wind; for among some hundreds 
* Drayton and other old poets call the redbreast Robinet 
